A lot of food was being brought from other countries and sold for less than the farmers could get for their own products. Most farmers couldn’t afford to buy larger pieces of land, which would have helped them to stay competitive. Wealthy landowners bought the land from the poor farmers, and left the farmers with almost nothing. This meant that the rich people got richer, and the poor ones got poorer. The poor could not get jobs because the conquering of foreign lands meant there were a lot of slaves to do the work for free. Only highly skilled workers or shopkeepers could earn good wages, and the city of Rome had many unemployed people. The patricians looked down on the shopkeepers, and joked that the people were so eager to make money that if the right price were offered, they would sell themselves!

As the already bad living conditions of poor people got worse and worse, they became ill due to malnutrition. There were epidemics of diseases such as tuberculosis, dysentery, and typhus. Eventually housing inspectors went from door to door to check on sanitation. For the first time there were also public doctors for people who could not afford to pay.